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Africa

I haven’t quite finished dismantling the mess of mittens and Sorels from our Thanksgiving trip to the Canadian Rockies and now it’s time to pack again for much warmer weather in Kigali, Rwanda. This will be my second time to Africa.

My first time was just last year – to South Africa – which I’m sure many people would not consider to be an accurate representation of the continent (if any one country could ever be). South Africa was (erroneously) never on the top of my list but the opportunity was too perfect to pass up. For months, I had been planning a trip across 15+ countries with two people I had never met for dozens of people who I had also never met. It sounds strange, I know. The point is, there was finally an opportunity to meet one of my fellow tour planners because he was the local guide for the South Africa leg of the tour.

We packed a lot into eight days but this post is about the middle three days, which was spent on safari in Kruger National Park. At over 7500 square miles, it’s about half the size of Switzerland, making Kruger one of the largest game reserves in Africa.

It was June, the beginning of winter in South Africa and the perfect time to spot wildlife, since much of the vegetation that animals normally use for camouflage had died. It didn’t take long for us to spot the big five (lion, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, leopard).